


Rewind

by nephie



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Implied abuse, Sexual Content, Slurs, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:44:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nephie/pseuds/nephie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Handmaid reflects on her life before her fight with the Condesce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind

By all accounts, your many sweeps should have left you with such copious amounts of knowledge that it may be too hard to contain all that you have the capacity to process.  But instead you find yourself staring at the cold red metal under your feet, wondering simple questions a child would procure.  How many trolls it had taken to make this monolith?  How many people had She had killed by ordering the creation of this?  How many people had you killed by following orders placed upon you? Both, you suppose, are too high to count.  Just as Her affinity for destruction and conquest had destroyed so many lives throughout Her reign, your resignation had remodeled the face of Alternia forever.  
  
Not that it existed anymore.  It was gone with the children who had destroyed it or (you forgot the logistics) had escaped its inevitable destruction while the rest had perished.  Your occupation does not require you to understand.  Your actions are enough.

You idly wonder how your footsteps sound so loudly on the metal -- you are in space, after all, and you have it on good authority that sound doesn't happen in space.  Something about reverberations, you think, kind of like when you practice magic in the vacuum chamber that had been prepared for you; it had nothing to latch onto, so it always dissipated.  You wish you understood more.  The universe could have been very interesting, once.

You stop, the out of place sound of your footsteps stopping with you.  She’ll know that something is happening soon.  You know this.  She has been stranded in the deadest parts of space for so, so long.  She will know that you have arrived.

You’ve been waiting for this for your entire life.  You liked to roll up your shirt over your chest and imagine three wounds bisecting your abdomen, your stomach slashed; your hands would sometimes find their way to your neck and would squeeze until it bruised, purple blotches manifesting like discoloured petals in a ring around your neck.  When She fucked you, you let Her rake ribbons of maroon down your body, taking an embarrassing amount of pleasure from the sharp feeling it left. You’d feel it for quite some time after, the gashes aching every time you moved.  The scars crisscross your body, lines conjoining and separating prettily, and you think it’s your favourite thing about your appearance.

And now it is actually going to happen, and your nerves coil together and quiver until your skin prickles with anticipation.  You feel your pulse pounding in your neck so hard that you find it difficult to breathe, and a thin film of sweat begins to cover your arms.  The door to the inside of the ship opens.  Your breath catches in your throat.  

\--  
  
Stop.  So much has happened in your life.  Sparing a few moments of memory surely would not be out of the question.  
Rewind.  
  
\---  
  
You’re young, so young that the weight of your hair still sits on top of your head in a neat bun.  Your work has begun, yes, and you are already weary of sabotaging plans, of encouraging natural disasters, of sneaking into the brooding caverns and squishing particular grubs before they get Selected.  But Alternia and your kin still hold a magic to them, a world that you had never explored.  You had never talked to another troll before you had been scooped back up by him, so at this point in time you are not as bitter.    
  
Even though you had been strictly told not to do anything not relating to your occupation, you take a leisure trip to the capital city of Alternia.  Later, you know, this city will crumble and fall when the adults leave for good, and it will rebuild itself when young trolls build hives there, and later still it will disappear entirely with the planet, but you select a time where it is at its height, under the rule of Alternia’s final Empress.  
  
You’re in the best part of the city; if you look just upward, you see the Imperial Palace looming over the rest of the houses like an impending punishment over a particularly rebellious employee.  Your thoughts had made you stop walking, teeth biting your lower lip thoughtfully.  That was the word: employee.  It is wholly inaccurate and you hate that you’re required to use it, but you had already spoken out against it so many times that your speaking privileges had been revoked indefinitely.  To be fair, you had also loudly complained about the food (they had made you cook for saying that), the state of the house (you’d been sentenced to repairs and cleanup), how his eyes flashed too much and gave you a headache (you had been reminded that your eyes do that more often than not, now, and that was the only punishment that had you shut up voluntarily).  Most things that you said pissed them off, so it really is no surprise that they took your voice for a bit.  
  
So you mutely wander around the city, toes scuffing the sidewalk, old newspapers and disposable cups and other urban detritus catching around your legs.  You shrug your cloak so it drapes over you more fully and pull up the hood so your eyes are covered.  You’re not used to them.  In truth, you never do get used to the ways your eyes flash, alternating quickly from green, blue, red, purple.  You only learn to control their actions later in life, and by then you had not seen your true eyes for so long that they seem foreign to you when you see them again.    
  
You keep your head lowered and push against other people, walking quickly toward the Imperial Palace.  While you’re in the city, you may as well see the most majestic part of it, yes?    
  
The gold gates to the palace are impressive, but your fence-jumping ability is decidedly much  more so.  You fall lightly, cheating by slowing your descent with magic, and land like a delicate waif or a tiny fairy or a nymph demoness, you’re not sure which is most applicable.  When you look up you see that the spires seem to touch the bottoms of the moons, and you take a second to admire how pretty the gold looks against the purple and green.  You then take to admiring the huge front doors and the hulking guards that are stationed in front of them, realize that you’re not going to get through the front entrance, and make your way to the side of the mansion.  
  
There’s a balcony that you easily get yourself up to.  The railing is spiked and when you grab it the soft flesh on your hands tears open, leaking maroon down your wrists and arms.  It’s pretty against the grey on your arms, you think, and you make no move to wipe it away.  Nimbly, you squeeze through the railing, but your cloak gets caught in it and has to stay behind.  It’s no real matter, you suppose.  It will be all right.  
  
You sit on the balcony and assess the damage that you’ve done to your body.  Your knees are bruised from scaling up the wall.  Some of your clothes are torn.  You’re incredibly dirty.  You know that a certain someone won’t be pleased with you, but you’re just happy to be doing something for yourself for once.  
  
Even if it’s difficult for you to even pinpoint something worth doing.  You’re pretty shaky on the society of your own people, after all, and you’re not entirely sure what, exactly, trolls do for themselves.  But taking a self-indulgent sightseeing tour doesn’t sound too far fetched, so you shake off your doubt and make for the doors leading into a room from the balcony.  
  
The handle only jiggles uselessly when you pull at it, so you take the wands from your hair and jam them in the crack of the door.  You’re not adept at picking locks, but given enough time you think you could potentially work your way in.  
  
The lock jiggling doesn’t go unnoticed, though.  This is how you meet Her for the first time -- more accurately, Her trident.  The door swings open and three prongs are immediately shoved in your face.  Surprise and panic makes your eyes flash more quickly than they had been before; one of your arms is in front of you to shield yourself in case She attacks.  You remember wondering how in the world you were supposed to look forward to this trident stabbing you through the middle, how being killed by this thing was to be a reward.  You were a very stupid child.  
  
“The fuck you doin’ here, guppy?”  She asks you, and you suppose that it’s just your luck that the Empress happened to be in the very room you were trying to get into.  You physically cannot say anything, so you instead take solace in the fact that the woman who is to take your place uses stupid words like “guppy” in attempts to intimidate people.  You smirk and expect Her to take notice and strike you, but some sort of epiphany seems to have taken hold of your Empress.  You watch warily as her eyes travel from your face to your maroon-stained hands, to your torn knee socks and scuffed mary janes.  She squints as though She’s trying to read a particularly boring state-of-the-empire report at too early in the morning, a look you will come to know intimately much later in your life.  “Damara?”  She says after a few moments, but it’s not really a question -- She’s identifying you with a single word.  This draws some confusion from you -- you are not Damara.  You are not anyone but Handmaid and Girl, but you do like the sound of Damara.  You wish it were the word used to identify you.  
  
You attempt to ignore her and edge around her, but She sticks out Her trident and blocks your path.  “Yeah, you ain’t slippin’ away like that, girl,” She says, “not when I’m tryin’a hold a fuckin’ conversation with you.”  
  
But you can’t hold a conversation and you definitely wouldn’t want to talk to Her if you could; you just want to see the inside of Her stupid palace.  But She’s adamant and She won’t move, so you fold your arms across your chest in defeat and exhale pointedly.  She rolls Her eyes.  
  
“You even more stubborn when you tiny, baby girl,” She says in a way that you read as cryptic.  You huff as loudly as you can (without utilizing your vocal chords) to express your discomfort at the familiarity this older troll is treating you with.  You hate pet names, and being made fun of for your height, and you especially hate being talked down to -- at least in this sort of situation.  You are most uncomfortable, however, with the fact that She seems to know you, and you let that particular discomfort settle in your stomach like a warm dinner.  If you are going to be forced to stay with Her, there is no point in staying anymore, is there?  You take a step away from Her, exhaling softly, preparing yourself to return home.  You check to make sure She isn’t hovering over you anymore, and she just seems to be watching curiously.  Good.

So you shut your eyes hard until they hurt and clench your hands into fists, digging your nails into the palms of your hands.  You feel reality shift and, encouraged, push yourself harder until you see green and red and blue flash from under your eyelids, and then the smell of crackling ozone fills your nostrils and you open your eyes to find yourself back in his mansion.  
  
You need to work on doing that quicker, you suppose, and with less injury involved.  You feel fat tears on your face and huge streams of blood travelling down the same paths that had just dried.  
  
You clean yourself up before anyone is the wiser.  
  
\----

Forward.

\----  
  
You cut your hair after you get into a fight with Her when She is far, far, younger -- she was probably around 7 sweeps, just like you (though your grasp on your age, let alone in troll terms, is shaky at best).  On another off day of yours you visit the ocean, an irrational primal fear keeping you from entering the water. Instead, you had reclined on the sand, digging your toes underneath the surface. The beach had been warm and comfortable, but then She had launched out of the ocean and attacked you, her hands immediately grabbing a fistful of your hair and yanking it back, exposing your neck.  You had panicked and let your body solve its own problems, adrenaline running to the tips of your fingers, and the Empress (to be at this point, you suppose) was, by some magic, thrown from you and you had remained safe.  Not that you wouldn’t want Her to kill you, really -- you wouldn’t have been allowed to die had She landed a lethal blow on you.  All you would have gained would be a violent lecture and a sense of pervasive shame.  
  
If it hadn’t been for the rest of your miserably unfortunate life, you may not have believed your bad luck.  How were you supposed to know that She would just so happen to be there, at that particular beach, at that particular point in time?  
  
It really is of no matter, you suppose.  You just do not want him to find out about this.  Not that he could do much worse than he’s already done, but you do not want any form of punishment.  If you are not careful, you might fuck things up spectacularly to the point where he  _has_  to know that you were shirking work and ruining his next-in-line handmaid. You don’t want that conversation.

So presently you sit with a pair of scissors on your little chair, your fingers shaking.  You had never altered your own appearance before.  But if another fight like that happens you don’t want your hair getting in the way again.  
  
Or maybe it really isn’t that?  Maybe it is in the conscious choice to change something about yourself.  Maybe on some terrible, borderline masochistic level, you want him to be upset with you -- maybe you want him to know that you’re pushing back, even if it is just with something as dumb as your hair.

The end result is the same, though.  You cut off the bun on your head and watch it fall, stray pieces unraveling and floating off before the main mass touches the ground.  You hadn’t used the mirror.  But then again, you  hadn’t used that for a long time, now.  
  
You don’t remember how he takes the news.  It is all too possible that you forgot it on purpose.  
You don’t mind, though.  It’s probably for the best that you don’t remember.  
  
(When you are older you travel to the beach minutes after your younger self fled.  You kick the Empress to be in the stomach and lift her with your magic, throwing her out to sea.  You had planned it for sweeps.  When you actually do it, though, it does not make you feel any better.)

\--

Forward.

\--  
  
You don’t know how old you are, but you think that Old covers all possibilities pretty well.  When you’re not wreaking havoc on your poor kin, you’re sleeping in your room with a chair propped under the knob, avoiding his advances onto your developed body.  When those two things aren’t on your to do list, you travel through time, picking up tribute from derelict lowbloods whose lives, though terrible and wrought with early death and oppression, were probably not as terrible as yours.  They leave little pieces of quartz and handmade reed flutes at tiny, clandestine shrines all for you.  You don’t really have a use for quartz or reed flutes, but they do leave food sometimes.  You like it when they leave food.

They leave notes asking for swift passings.  They are in the front lines, O Demoness, and they do require the mercy of a goddess such as yourself.  You do not have the capacity to do what they desire of you, but you do enjoy their food and collect their pieces of quartz and try to play the reed flute at odd hours until he screams at you to stop and go to sleep.  You have a pretty little collection of pale pink quartz on your vanity, and you like to stare at it in lieu of doing anything productive.  

(Sometimes, though, you stumble upon a soldier praying for their life in the battle to come.  Sometimes they speak to you with such reverence that you are shocked into staying still for some time, for who could ever think such great things about the destroyer of one’s race?  But, though you have caused the inadvertent deaths of many, you cannot leave these people to their own devices.  You trail along them in battle for reasons largely unknown to you and intercept fatal blows, carry them out of harm’s way if they do get hurt, kill a particularly persistent enemy for them.  If you are around for them to thank you, many weep.  They kiss your fingertips, your calves, your feet.  It feels good to do something good, incidentally).

You dwell in one era for quite some time, collecting gifts from those who need your support and sipping cheap flower nectar from the little cups they leave out for you.  It is the age of the Sufferer, you know, and unfortunately you are about to make things much harder for those with the same rust in their veins as you.  You take yourself to the Imperial Palace once more, a leather bound book thrust under the crook of your arm.  
  
You shimmy your way up to the balcony once more, but you have grown somewhat bigger and you have trouble squeezing through the bars.  He finds it hilarious that you have not grown much from when you were younger.  You find it hilarious when his mouth gapes open after you tell him to stuff it.  After that, of course, everything stops being funny for every party involved, but it's nice while it lasts.

With some difficulty you press your way through the balcony bars, scratching up the side seams of your stupid tight green dress and the sides of your body.  You curse liberally and pull yourself through the balcony, preparing to pick the lock on the door leading into the palace.

To your surprise it is unlocked, and you step in easily.  You’re almost immediately blinded by the sheer amount of gold that assaults your eyes, and you’re pretty sure that you hiss in response to the sudden brightness.  Why any troll would want this much unnatural light in their dwelling is beyond you, but you ignore your perturbation for the time being.  There is a job to do.

You make out of this useless sitting room and into the hallway, traveling down the floors that are carpeted so thickly that you sink a few inches with each step you take.  Almost leisurely, you swing into a side room that he had told you about, and you walk to the desk in the back of the room.  The book goes on top of the desk, and then you admire your handiwork for a second too long.  The door clicks shut.

You don’t whirl to face the intruder.  There is no need.

“Ain’t you s’posed to be wrecking shit?  Krillin’ the fuck outta some nasty peasantbloods?  Why you playin’ delivery girl all of a sudden?”  Your fists clench involuntarily.  

You don’t want to please Her with an answer, but you have full control over your vocal chords and your pride won’t let you leave without saying anything this time.  “Do not be so ungrateful, Empress.  I am only helping your cause, after all,” you say, speaking in the half truths that you’d been raised on.  Scratch, you think bitterly, would be proud.

“Yikes,” says the Empress, “I mean,  _Pikes_. Heh,” She says, chuckling to Herself.  “You awful cold, yeah?  No reason to be that bitchy,” She walks next to you and takes the book off Her desk, flipping through it boredly.  “A perigee ago a tiny you was here and everythin’, but at least you're talkin’ now,” She probably intends to catch you off guard, but instead you just feel the beginning of a nasty headache in the bridge of your nose.  Of course you remember being here when you were younger, but time shenanigans are enough to make you ill on the best of days.  You would sit down if it wouldn’t make you look painfully like the antithesis of a frightening demoness.

“Please, Empress.  If you would like me to be bitchy, do let me know.  I am doing nothing of the sort at this moment,” you say, tactfully ignoring any mention of time bullshit.  You are (and never will be) in the mood to discuss that.  

She circles you like a vulture, or a carrion-wingbeast or whatever trollkind might call it, and it is enough to make you want to return home again.  You have already done your job, after all, and leaving now would probably make things better for you in the future.  But you do not make any move to flee, not now.  “Baby girl,” She starts, but you cut in before She can say another word.

 “Do not call me that,” you say, meeting her eye.  You hope that yours are flashing dangerously.  “Your people say prayers to me.  I have completely reshaped the history of your society.  I am someone to be feared.”

 The Empress seems to taste your words for a few moments.  “Yeah, ok, Damara,” She says as if that word has any meaning to you.  You look at Her levelly.

“Agree or disagree with me, but your demeaning comments have no effect on my position.  I will be leaving now,” you walk around Her and make for the door, but you aren’t able to leave before She seizes your hand.  You whirl and punch Her on reflex.  “Do not touch me.  I did say I was leaving after all, yes?”  But the Empress had not released your hand, and She pulls you close to her.  You got Her right below Her eye, you think with a degree of pride, and She’s sure to have a bruise a bit later.

“But I’d be bein’ a shitty host if I let you leave just now,” She says, raising an eyebrow when you stiffen at a particular point in Her sentence.  She reaches back in Her nest of hair and retrieves a key, pressing it into your hands.  “‘S the key to my favourite place in this palace.  Not even a regular cat burglar like yourself would be able to get in without it,” She closes your fingers around it before you have the sense to throw it at Her.   She then circles you again, having the nerve to take one of your hairtails between Her fingers.  “I also made tea.  ‘S your favourite, though I probubbly didn’t make it as good as you do,” she says, and you’re just so frustrated at this point because  _you’re_  supposed to be the cryptic time goddess and  _you’re_  supposed to be making these stupid nonsense statements, not Her.

But you’re not about to turn down a free drink.  “I suppose I could stay for a little longer,” you say slowly, pivoting on the balls of your feet.  “Lead me.”  

She takes you out of the room and into the sitting room you had broken into.  There is, you realize, a tray of tea on the table, gold saucers and cups aggressively flashing in your eyes.  You wince with distaste and take one, but you don’t hate yourself enough to take the spot on the couch that She is patting insistently.  “I don’t get you, baby girl,” She huffs after you make it clear that you are not going to sit.  “Last time I met you when you old like this, you was all over me,” She holds Her teacup but does not sip it.  “Now you ain’t even makin’ my gaze without glarin’ at me,” She tastes it, Her eyes widening at the heat.  You sigh.  You sincerely hope your future does not involve more of this, but you suppose you have done worse things.

“You are not very observant, Empress,” you say, taking a taste of the tea yourself.  You had never actually had tea that you had enjoyed before, certainly not whatever this was.  You have no idea why She calls it your favourite, but you suppose that She isn’t necessarily wrong.  “I do not work in a linear fashion.  Have you not gathered as much?  I thought our great ruler was a smidge more perceptive,” you say, hoping to rub Her the wrong way, but the Empress does not seem to mind.  She stands up, places the saucer on the table, and makes her way over to you, closing the gap between you so quickly that you don’t have time to close yourself off to her.  She then unceremoniously takes your tea from you and sets it on the table, and then takes you by your shoulders and forces you to the couch.  You let Her shove you onto it.

“Was that necessary?” You ask as She pushes onto your back.  Her hands are cold.  
  
“Nah,” She says as she positions Herself above you.  Your skin prickles funnily and your stomach starts to hurt.  You could push Her away if you wanted to.  You watch her curiously, instead.    
  
“You tryin’ to tell me this is your first time doin’ this with me?” She asks, incredulous.  You give as much of a shrug as you’re capable of giving.  Her fingers are kneading comfortable circles into that space where your neck and shoulders meet --  it’s a nice feeling, you think.  You focus on that instead of the harsh laugh She lets out in response to your answer, and in that way you successfully ignore the urge to punch Her in the face again.  Your emotions are doing weird circles in your head and you would like a moment to yourself to organize them into tiny, vacuum-packed compartments that would be easy to forget about.  But the Empress does not stop touching you so you cannot start thinking, but you do not ask Her to stop.

Perhaps you should not let yourself be fucked by the Empress, one part of you thinks, but the other parts of you make short work of beating that one scrap mercilessly.  You have been fucked by much, much worse.  And, if she has fucked you before, you suppose that it may not be as unbearable as it is with most other people.  Maybe she will be able to find your clit.

She begins to lean down to your face, but she's slow and waiting doesn't interest you. You smash your mouth into hers, probably bruising your lips in the process.  She takes this gutsiness as impudence and pins your wrists above your head, her teeth biting into your lip until you taste copper.  Her other hand roams up your leg, swirling patterns onto your thighs, and she then begins to unbutton your dress slowly.  You do not like slow.  You flail your arms to try to get them loose because She does not know how to undress you quickly enough, but the Empress tightens Her grip on your wrists when you struggle.  You panic stupidly for a few seconds and writhe until She leans down close to your ear and tells you to quit it.  Despite yourself, you comply.

She pauses between each button she unfastens, trailing her fingers on the flesh she exposes with each one.  You make Her grin when your breathing goes ragged, when your fists tighten and your nails dig into the palms of your hands, when you lift your back to meet her fingers.  

The two parts of your dress are peeled back and She has exposed you to Her, wearing nothing but your undergarments.  She pulls at your garter, letting it snap on your leg.  “Why you wearing this, baby?  You tryin’ to impress someone?”  She says, teasing.  You stick out your tongue at Her in response, and she leans down and rewards your puckishness with a kiss.  All the while, Her free hand brushes over your bra, and she gives your tit a squeeze.  It’s not pleasurable but it’s not exactly painful, so you squirm and make a noise against Her mouth to halfheartedly tell Her to stop.  She continues to awkwardly paw at your boob, ignoring your mixed message, and She then unhooks the back and pulls off your bra, letting it hang from one of Her fingers.  Unabashedly, She stares at you until you squirm under her gaze, and then She bends to kiss your collarbone, your shoulders, your breasts.  Her hand pushes against your back and brings you closer to Her mouth, and Her tongue is so cold against your hot skin that it gives you goosebumps and makes you give a wracking sigh, air rattling through your body violently.

She releases your wrists and you flex them experimentally, slowly bringing them down as you study Her face in case She does not want you to move them.  But She simply relocates Her now-free hand with Her other one, both rubbing circles into your back.  She then leans back and pushes up on your back until you’re sitting upright; your vision swims and you blindly grasp for purchase.  “Whoa, babygirl,” She says as you make a loop around Her neck with your arms, and She then splays a hand on your back, the other on your ass.  You might be scared.  You’re trembling, you think, or She is, it’s hard for you to tell with certainty.   The hand on your back travels up past your shoulders, your neck, and settles in the short curls of your hair.  She pulls your head back and kisses your jawbone, and then slides her mouth to the soft dip in your neck where your flesh is thin and pleasant to touch.

She’s holding you close enough so that you feel Her pulse in your own chest, so that you could trick yourself that Her breath is your own.  She moves your body so that you’re straddling one of Her legs, and She then adjusts both of you until her knee is pushing insistently between your thighs.  Experimentally, she brings Her knee up more until she gets a noise from you, and She then relaxes it again.

“This ok, baby?”  She asks as She begins the process again.  No, you want to say, it is not ok in the slightest.  Fucked some version of you from the future or not, you still don’t know Her which, while it isn’t a problem in it of itself, it  _is_ a problem when you consider how gently she’s treating you.  All things considered, she is going to kill you in a handful of sweeps.  Furthermore, you would not have guessed that she would be so sensitive to your desires.  Most of her caste have a sense of superiority hardwired in with their bloodcolour, you had experienced, and you are not about to insinuate that She is not similar in that regard.  It still begs the obvious question of why, though, and to say that it makes you uncomfortable is an understatement.

But you disregard all that in favour of how nice you feel right now, and you make a noise that you hope is yes but could have just as well been anything else.  All that matters is that it encourages Her to drive Her knee up again, and despite yourself you begin to rock back and forth on it, biting your lip where She had bitten it, and She supports your weight with Her hands.  

“I’m gonna take this off, ok baby?”  She says, letting one of Her hands dip to your garter, your stockings, your panties.  She begins to pull at your garter and you stiffen almost instantly as you watch her.  She looks up.  “Or is that a no?”

You, panting and probably looking grossly disheveled, shake your head.  “You are going to break it like that,” you manage to get out.  You swallow the saliva that’s built up in your mouth.  “Allow me,” you say as you take it off yourself, the garterbelt first.  You’re putting your weight on your knees, Her leg still underneath you, and the hand that She has on the small of your back splays and pushes your stomach closer to Her.  She kisses one nipple, the other;  your hands shake.  Once your garterbelt is off, the thumb from Her other hand hooks around the band of your stockings, and you begin to pull at your underwear.  She finishes the job and tugs them to your knees.

It had been a while since you felt exposed with your clothes off.  Though you are not shy about people seeing your body, you find yourself looking to the side, focusing intently on the glint of the golden tea cups.  You stay like that until She runs her hands down your sides, stopping to rest them on your hips.  You realize that you aren’t breathing and resume your normal function.

She rubs circles into your thighs until you’re certain that you’re making a fool out of yourself with the expression you know is on your face, with the noises coming from your throat.  Apparently satisfied, the Empress trails her hand upward and, without any more buildup, strokes just around your clit slowly, making smooth figure eights.  Her seadweller hands are cold and clammy and you seize up at first, making Her pull away, but you shake your head afterward and move Her hand back yourself, your breath coming out unevenly.

She’s very sweet, you think.  She’s much too gentle when she fingers you, and she’s too harsh and direct when she rubs your clit.  But she tries and Her nails are short and don’t pinch, and she calls you nice words and kisses the area just below your ears.  You especially like it when She massages around the base of your horns.

When you both are quite through She snakes Her arms around you and falls back on the couch, burrowing her nose into your neck.  She’s much bigger than you, so it’s easy to become enveloped completely in Her limbs.  You don’t mind.  
  
She cuddles you until it becomes suffocating for you, and you then break out of her grip and stand up.  You assess yourself quickly, automatically.  Your dress is hanging off one of your arms, your underwear is around your ankles, your stockings, shockingly, are still on.  Mentally, you’re not as ashamed as you should be, but you are horrendously confused.

Why is She treating you like this?  You’re still unsure.  You stoop to pick up your bra, but you hear a tutting noise behind you.  “There ain’t no way you just gonna crawl back into those clothes and leave.  I’ma get you to a shower, come on, Damara.”

You find that ‘Damara’ doesn’t bother you anymore.  You do not contemplate why.

You wrap yourself in one of the Empress’s bath robes after your shower.  It’s embroidered with gold and dyed a deep fuchsia, and you like the way the colour looks on you.  She says that she likes how big it is on you and that it’s cute like that.  You tell Her to shut up.

Her bras are too small for you, so you wear a pair of her panties and pull on a T-shirt that advertises a coastal cleanup from too many sweeps ago.  She makes you tea again and, when you ask what tea She’s using, She gives you an entire container of the leaves for you to use.  You pry more and ask what her favourite is, and then She gives you a handful of teabags so you can try it yourself.  She then asks what, exactly, that book was detailing, and you calmly tell her of the Sufferer, of the jadeblood who escaped her duty, of the small mass that they are gathering.  “They are gaining momentum, especially among warmbloods,” you warn her.  She makes a face at your politically-incorrect term and mutters peasantblood under Her breath.  You ignore Her.  “Given the size of the warmerblood population, you do not want that happening, do you?”  You take a sip of tea.  “That book details the Sufferer’s transgressions and known locations.  I leave the rest in your capable hands.”  Before you embarrass yourself further, you stand up and transport yourself back to his mansion instantaneously.  You had improved in your time jumping capabilities.

But you do not take time to revel in that.  You are emotionally confused and depraved and so, so tired, so you jam the chair under the door handle and collapse on your bed, falling asleep quickly.

\--

Forward.

\--

You thought that you might have to help Her in the ascent to the Alternian throne, as he had told you to assist Her.  But you show up and watch before you take action, trying to find the best time to assist.  The fight is over within seconds.  The old empress, though admittedly incompetent, was older and far more experienced than Her, but the old empress lies dead and fuchsia-soaked on the floor and your Empress stands over her, clutching both tridents in Her hands.

You are not needed here.  But you do have a meeting that you have been planning for some time, so you allocate yourself to a few perigees in the future, after She has settled in.  
  
The door on top of the balcony is not unlocked this time and you do not have the patience to pick the lock, so you ram yourself against it until it begrudgingly cracks open.  You hope that She does not mind much.

Withdrawing the key She gave you from your bra, you leave the sitting room (feeling your face grow just slightly warmer as you pass the couch) and wander the hall, following the instructions She gave you before.  The small staircase is where She told you it would be, and you make your way down it until you reach an unassuming door.  True to Her word, though, it is impossible for you to pick or ram down or blast open with magic.  So, after making sure that it was, indeed, indestructible, you calmly slide the key into the lock and step in, leaving the door open behind you.

You’re assaulted by the stench of salt.  You’re also assaulted by an angry Empress, one of your arms wrenched behind you and the bar of her trident pressing into your neck.  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t gut you where you stand, rusty,” She says, and you wonder how “rusty” will eventually turn into “baby girl.”  It should be interesting to see unfold, at least.

“Aside from it being fruitless?” You ask, standing calmly.  “The time will come for that, Empress.  Good things come to those who wait.”

“Yeah, ok, Troll Aesop,” She almost spits out, Her trident pressing closer to your neck.  “Who the fuck gave you permission to be in here?  You tryin’ to sweep the floors or somethin’?”  You sigh.  You’re surprised that She still doesn’t know who you are.

“You did of course, Empress.  I would not have been able to get in any other way.”  You hold up the key that is still in your hand, and She snatches it up quickly to inspect it.  Taking advantage of Her divided attention and your small size, you squeeze out from behind Her trident and stand to the side, waiting.  “Does that satisfy you, Empress?”  

She looks up from the key and sees your flashing eyes, your iconic dress, your curling horns.  “You fuckin’ with me?”  She asks, sounding exasperated.  “You dressin’ up as some lowblood goddess to try to scare me ain’t gonna work,” She says, pinching the bridge of her nose.  Her nails, you realize, are incredibly long.  You’re glad that they weren’t when you had met Her the last time.

“Hardly,” you say, not wanting this to turn into a ‘prove you’re the Demoness’ game.  “But if you are not convinced, you are welcome to try to kill me now.”

Your Empress quirks an eyebrow.  “You got a death wish”

“Yes,” you say, “but that is beside the point.”

You stand against the wall and put on your best bored expression, looking at your Empress levelly.  She aims a shot, the side of her tongue poking out in concentration.  In any other situation, it may have been endearing.  “Your horns gonna look so good over my fireplace, bitch,” she says as she throws it at you.  You could easily stop it with your own magic, you could easily move so it wouldn’t be lethal, you could easily leave this timeline to avoid it.  You do not move.

It hits your chest cavity and you hear hundreds of tiny parts breaking.  You don’t know if you’ve ever endured anything more painful, but you will manage.  You only allow yourself a wince, a singular cringe to acknowledge that it had hurt at all.  Then, you simply take the trident and unceremoniously pull it out, bits of your anatomy coming out with it.  The Empress, who had been watching intently, falters as wicked magic encircles the wounds, flashing colours so quickly that it appears white.  Your bones reaffix, your organs reform, your skin coalesces and seals up.  In seconds, three tears in your dress and odd smatterings of maroon are the only evidence that she had even attacked you at all.

“Shit,” says the Empress as you hand the trident back, and She eyes the blood on it with a grimace.  “Guess I can’t get rid of you that easily.”

You nod, feigning sympathy.  “Unfortunate, isn’t it?”  Instead of continuing with this line of conversation, you walk around her to see the room that she likes so much.  As if on reflex, your Empress points a trident at you threateningly.  Before you can stop yourself you snort and, realizing what you just did, you snort again.  “Trying to get me excited?  You have just demonstrated that I cannot be harmed by that.  Is your memory that short, Empress?”  

She relents, grumbling something under Her breath that you don’t care enough about to get Her to repeat.

You move on ahead, but She follows, trailing just behind you.  You do your best to ignore Her, but She speaks up on Her own accord.

“Have we met before?”

You let the question hang for a moment, like the well-meaning neophyte you had witnessed die a few days prior to today.  It was a pity, really.  If she had fit into his plans better, maybe she could have lived through that ordeal.  
But the cerulean blood had been much, much more important.  Fate works in mysterious ways, and by mysterious you mean meticulously planned and plotted.  The world is much less magical when you are the one making it run.

 She has waited long enough.  “Yes.  Twice from your perspective, not including now.  More from mine.”  She scoffs, an ugly sound.  
  
“Yeah?  When?”  
“You threw yourself on me when we were both children.  You tried to kill me on the beach.”

 She doesn’t know the word “children” so you take a few agonizing seconds to explain it.  She says that it’s stupid that you use that word instead of proper troll words.  You tell Her that you aren’t a troll, that you’re a goddess.  She tells you that you’re full of bullshit.  You shrug and tell Her maybe.

 She then tosses a hand to the side.  “You the dumbass who disappeared when I attacked you?”  You nod.  
  
“I am also the one who threw you into the ocean afterward.”  
“Uh, I don’t remember that part,” She says, bluffing.  
“Sure,” you say, reasoning that you have every capacity to choose your battles.  You will let this one slide.

 You notice that it is getting hard for you to walk, your feet slipping and sinking into the floor, and realize that you’re on sand, and suddenly the smell of salt makes much more sense.  You stop and blink dumbly, letting your lashes fall onto your cheeks.  You hear air fill your lungs, hear it leave.  You’re immensely jealous that She can have anything that She wants, no matter how ridiculous or improbable.

“You have an indoor beach?” You asked, trying to sound unimpressed.  You’re anything but.  She straightens up and grins, her lips stretching over her teeth;  you turn your gaze when you see how sharp they are.

“Sure do!”  She says, emphasizing the ‘sh’ sound.  She leads you to the shore, and there are replicas of the moons hanging in a fabricated sky.  The light’s too harsh in comparison with the nature of the real moons.  You frown.

You don’t swim, but you watch Her.  When She comes out of the water Her hair sticks to Her body, dragging behind Her, and you think you see flopping fish tails ensnared in her curls.  She pulls one of them and your suspicions are confirmed, and She then bites off the fish’s head.  As She chews it thoughtfully, she makes Her way over to you and sits down.  “So,” She starts.

“So,” you attempt to finish.  It doesn’t work.  
  
“You tryin’ to tell me that I gave that key to you?”  You nod, shrugging.  
  
“You also gave me tea, a shower and one of your shirts, but I guess you are less interested in those?”  
  
She looks taken aback, but quickly regains composure.  “Why the fuck would I do that?”  
  
You consider being polite, but throw that notion away once it crosses your mind.  “Because you also gave me an orgasm, and I suppose that even a spoiled empress has some semblance of trollish decency,” you say easily, and you hide your smirk when She blanches at that.  She splutters until you laugh, and She then shoves you to the side with a sudden outburst of anger.  You fall without resistance.  
  
“You a shitty lyin’ witch--”  
  
“Ah, right,” you interrupt.  “Your kind is fond of calling me such names.  I am also known as the Destroyer of Eras, Empress of the Flesh, Handmaid of the Lord--”  
“Good god,” says the Empress, effectively shutting you up.  You laugh again, your shoulders shaking, and you stand decisively.  

“All right, I will not bother you anymore,” you say, turning so you’re facing the exit.  “Unless you want me to make tea.  You also gave me your favourite blends,” you say.

There’s a pause.  “Well, I did just run out of my favourite stuff,” She says, grumbling.

\-- 

You make Her tea, and you give Her a few extra bags so She can make more while She waits for the next shipment to come in.  You also give Her your favourite, because you want Her to be able to make you some the next time you’re over.

Before you leave She takes your arm.  You kiss Her because you’ve done it before and it feels natural.  She doesn’t pull away.

“Hey,” She says after you take your mouth from Hers.  You had to levitate to be able to kiss Her on the mouth, and you lower yourself to the ground.  “What can I call you?”

“Goddess?  Witch?  Destroyer of Eras, Empress of the Fle--”

“No!” She groans.  “I mean your actual fuckin’ name, you harlot,” Your Empress kisses the crown of your head.

 You are about to tell Her that no, you do not have a name and you have never had one, but when you open your mouth to say so you stop.  You did have a name and She had called you it before, and you like the idea of having something to call yourself, even if it is only between you and Her.

 Damara,” you say, feeling something inside of you shift, move, and click into place.  “You can call me Damara.”

\--

 Forward.

 --

 You visit Meenah whenever you have a free moment.  You spend lazy afternoons curled on Her lap, laying on Her important papers, demanding that She carry you around, eating Her out, carefully directing Her to Her destiny.  The last few sweeps of your life, you realize, are all blurred together, acts of mayhem punctuated by visits to Meenah at different points in time.  She loves seeing you, and you love seeing Her when She smiles at your presence.  You haven’t told Her about  _it_  yet.

 She pries about your life, your origins, but you do not give Her much to go off of.  You mostly change the subject by scribbling on one of Her important documents or by asking her to take a commemorative selfie with you.  She has a whole book full of those.

 When all of the adults leave the planet, you cannot visit Her.  In theory you could, but he would probably know if you were gone for too long.  You try to spend more time with her by going back in time, but after a few sessions of rough sex and information divulging, you are worried that tampering with Her too much will change the course of history.  You confine yourself to one era, the last era of trollkind.

 Work bores you.  The children do not leave as many offerings for you.  They do, however, call you “foxy,” and you are quite sure that your Empress has something to do with that.  It doesn’t bother you.  But the countdown of your life is drawing to a close, and when you realize that there will not be any longterm repercussions for doing so anymore, you decide to make one last trip into the future.

 She will not know for a while.  That is all right.

 --

 Stop.

 --

 You let out the breath you have been holding for so long, and you watch your Empress step out into the dead of space with you.  It’s dark like Her beach had been, and if you pretend you can believe that the expanse of space is just a stretch of wide, endless ocean.

 Relief floods Her face when She sees you.  “Baby girl!  I thought you was dead for sure,” She says, enveloping you in Her arms.  Her hair is longer than you remember.

 “Almost,” you say.  Your arms wrap around Her waist, and you realize that you had missed the way She smelled, how you fit into Her arms.  Even without the ocean around her, she still smells like brine.  “I have wanted to be dead for quite some time now, Empress,” you pull away, feeling the blood of all of Alternia on your fingertips, caked under your nails.  Meenah pets your back, tracing the scars She had marked you with.  
  
“Nah, baby, don’t say that,” She says, tightening Her grip.  You wonder how long She’s been alone for.  “It’s only us now, right?  That’s fine, it’s aight.”  She peppers you with kisses until you’re laughing, and you then stand on your tiptoes and throw your arms around Her.

“Unfortunately, no.  I have to ask something of you on behalf of my employer,” you say and, though you have brought up that you do not wreck Alternia on your own accord, Her eyes widen slightly.  “You have to take my place, Meenah.”

She does not take it well, especially when you tell Her that you have known that this would be the outcome all along.  You tell her that you told Her as much before, that She would have to kill you eventually, and She holds you so tightly that you fear She will inadvertently kill you.  

You kiss Her.  You are very sorry that She has to do this.  
But good things come to those who wait, after all, and you have been very, very patient.  

Your body doesn’t heal itself this time.

\--

She hunches over her desk on Derse, her room bathed in purple light.  She has been through so, so much now, and she now has an idea of what she has to do, but she is unsure how to do it.  She is almost never unsure.  The reality of the situation makes her uncomfortable, makes her fingers dig into her thighs.

She rubs the bags under her eyes.  She usually covers them with makeup, slightly tinged fuchsia for some inherent pride in her superiority over her dead race, but she does not plan to leave her study today.  It is a work day.

She hears something.  It is a sound she had thought that she had long since forgotten, but hearing it again takes her back hundreds of sweeps, back when she was weaker, back before she had been under his control.  She turns.

Her baby girl stands there, intact.  Her cheeks are flushed with life, her eyes lucid.  A book is tucked under her arm, which she then brandishes out in front of her.  She’s smiling.  
“I have been doing a lot of work, Meenah!”  She says, dimples poking into her cheeks when she smiles.  “Before you kill me, how about we take him down, hm?”  She opens the book, her neat handwriting filling the pages.  

The Empress smiles, and for the first time in a while it isn't in grisly amusement.  “Together?”  She asks, taking her baby girl’s hand again.  It’s a lot smaller than She remembers.  She gives it a little squeeze.

Damara nods, squeezing her Empress’s hand three times.  

“Together.”


End file.
